Ms. Ref. No.

: MSEA-D-14-04943
Materials Science & Engineering A
Dear Dr. Fouda,
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Materials Science & Engineering A
Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer #1: In this manuscript, the authors investigated the thermal,

microstructure, and mechanical properties of Sn-5.0 wt% Sb-0.5 wt% Cu
Solder Alloys with and without ZnO nano-particles addition. A slight
increase in melting temperature, decrease in grain sizes, and increase in
tensile strength but decrease in ductility is observed with the ZnO
addition. The result is new and maybe of interest to solder materials
research community and MSEA readership. However, the current version
of the manuscript is not suitable for publication and needs revision.
1. In the introduction, there are a few places that are difficult to read

due to writing logic:

(1) from line 37- 41, the authors first state " low melting point solder"
needs to be developed to avoid high soldering temperatures damage, then
the authors immediately state " In high temperature applications, Sn-5wt%
Sb solder is one of great potential alternative material", therefore, it is
confusing whether this study of Sn-5wt% Sb solder is to lower the process
temperature or not. It is, the authors may need to explain how this Sn-5wt
% Sb solder could help to solve the processing temperature problem. If it
is not, the authors may need to change the order of some of the sentences
to make it easier to read.
(2) From line 48-52, "Many researchers investigated the effect of adding
nanoparticles to solder alloys on the thermal, structural, and mechanical
characterizations [11-15]. However, the secondary phase must be
sufficiently fine, bond well, stable, has a higher flow resistance than the
alloy matrix, undeformable and resist the fracture of solder joint [16-18].
"It might be useful to summarize what progress and shortcomings of many
researchers have achieved, and then talk about how the secondary
particles should be.
2. In experiment session, there are some places that need clarification;
(1) line 62, it might be useful to list the approximate hardness of ZnO and
Sn-5.0Sb matrix as in (i) if available.
(2) Line 65, what is the temperature and atmosphere for the melting
process?
(3) Line 73, what is the atmosphere for the heat treatment?
(4) Line 85, it might be better to specify how long the etching takes
instead of "for a few seconds"
3. Line 141-143, "One can observe that, the diffraction lines are slightly
shifted towards lower angles, indicating a refinement of b-Sn grain size
with addition of ZnO nano-metric particles [24, 25]." This is confusing; do
the authors want to talk about the shift of peak position indicating finer
grain size (not correct) or the change of FWHM of the peak? Please specify
instead of using "the diffraction lines are slightly shifted ".
4. Line 157-162, the authors first state that measured lattice strain can be
attributed to both defect formation and sample preparation, then
immediately conclude that "This broadening was supposed to be due to
lattice strain. Moreover lattice strain is introduced upon phase transition
from coarsen b-Sn phase to refinement phase." A more detailed analysis
with more sentences might be needed here for clarification. As shown, in
table 2, the grain size is also smaller in SSC-ZnO, which could contribute to
peak broadening, then why the broadening was due to lattice strain? Also,
since sample preparation can induce strain, the authors might need to
comment how much strain is introduced in the two samples preparation
before making the conclusion "Moreover lattice strain is introduced upon
phase transition from coarsen b-Sn phase to refinement phase ".
5. From line 173-177, the grain size of Sn for the two alloys are 100-140

micron and 90-50 micron, but in table 2, it shows grain size is 116 nm and
99 nm, why there is such big difference(>1000X)?
6. What is the average grain size of ZnO nano-particles? 33 nm
7. In the conclusion session, line 255, " ZnO nanoparticles dissolve and
react with the molten SSC505 solder at 600 oC during the fabrication of
SSC-ZnO composite solder. ". but in experiment session, line 66-69, " SSCZnO composite solder was prepared by mechanical mixing of 0.5 wt%
nano-metric ZnO particles into plain SSC505 solder with subsequent
remelting in a vacuum furnace at 300oC for 2 hours to obtain a
homogeneous composition. " These two melting temperatures are
different; please clarify which is the correct one?
8. There are many typo and grammar errors, below are some examples:
(1) line 19, " Field emission scanning electronic microscope (EF-SEM) ",
should be "FE-SEM".
(2) line 23, " adding ZnO nano-metric particles were found to be", should
be "was".
(3) line 41, " one of great potential alternative material ", should be
"materials".
(4) line 42, " highly creep and corrosion resistance ", should be "high".
(5)line 101, " The slightly increase in melting ", should be "slight".
(6)line 113, " range which is an essential parameter to estimates the time
required for finishing the soldering", should be "estimate".
(7) line 134, " is an evident of ZnO nanoparticles dispersion", should be
"evidence".
(8) line 138, " that corresponding to Cu6Sn5", should be "corresponds".
(9)line 153, " Results of linear fitting of extracting data summarized in
table 2.", should insert "are" before "summarized".
(10)line 164, " That indicating the strain is accompanied by density
dislocations", indicating should be "indicates", " density dislocations"
should be "dislocation density".
(11) line 172, " Results revealed the plain solder composed of larger nonequiaxed grain", should insert "was" before "composed of".
(12) line 230, " because of their restrict effect for", should be "restricting".
(13) line 232, " Therefore the dislocations have much less freedom that
cannot pass through climb and cross slip planes that lead to increase the
flow stresses", this sentence has several errors.
(14) Caption of table 3, "Table 3. Energy dispersive R-Ray (EDX) analysis ",
should be "X-Ray".